Akron Sept 6th Review

Review by cradrock (Switch to
)9/09/2009

First, I'd like to give "kudos" to Doug and Mel of Rundgren Radio. This was an incredible effort on their part as well as the Rundgren's. Doug and Mel do a great job of pulling together fans...fans with different outlooks, opinions, personalities, from all over the globe. Making everyone happy is no easy task and they come as close as possible to accomplishing the impossible.

The Rundgren Radio Bash II was a success. Good food, good fun, merchandise, rare items, cool cakes (and very tasty).

I was (as everyone else) blown away by the concert. It was a tremendous effort...and a whole lot of entertainment. Here's the basic overview:

Opening Act - "Utopia" (Mach 4?) with Todd, Kaz, Roger and Prarie:

Once the lights dropped and the opening sounds to "Road to Utopia" started, the crowd stood and NEVER sat down.
Barely rehearsed, they sounded great...and Prarie, taking cues from Todd sounded great...I love his drumming (in my opinion more power in his licks than Willie)
They had a few flubs here and there...but it was just so good to see them together and hear those songs perfomed again. All voices were perfect. Roger missed a few notes. Todd seemed surprised when Kasim strapped on the 5 string bass to play Caravan. I could swear Todd said "I can't believe we're going to try this"...and then proceeded to leave out the guitar solo during the performance.

Again...a great effort considering the time spent on Wizard...and probably not much time on the Utopia reunion rehearsals.

Main Event - "A Wizard, A True Star"

The band was phenominal!!!! I've seen Todd work up a sweat...but never like this. He worked his butt off! Again, the voices were dead on by everyone...especially Todd. I was very surprised when Kasim sand "Does anybody love you" instead of Todd. But he did a great job while Todd was backstage taking a breath and changing again.

Very few, if any mis-cues other than Todd changing (or forgeting) the original solos. Also a couple of times you could hear his mic as he went offstage to quickly change wardrobe (that part was actually funny). Then there was a couple of wardrobe "Malfunctions" and just before Zen Archer...you could hear Todd call out "Major Malfuction" as he had to postpone the opening verse while the band improvised (which they did incredibly!)

Don't miss this. I understand the PPV was a great way to watch...so you don't have to miss it!